


The Die is Recast

by vocal_fries



Series: Subtext Becomes Text [20]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: DS9 S3E21 "The Die is Cast", Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e21 The Die Is Cast, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Post-Episode: s03e21 The Die Is Cast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-22 12:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22783081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vocal_fries/pseuds/vocal_fries
Summary: Garak grapples with the fallout of Tain's apparent death. Set at the end of DS9 S3E21 "The Die is Cast," which is a perfect episode.If you haven't been reading this series, you could read this as a one-off. It'll make enough sense if you're familiar with the episode in canon.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Series: Subtext Becomes Text [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/965958
Comments: 52
Kudos: 113





	The Die is Recast

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, so this is probably the only non-smutty thing I'll ever write. Sorry, or you're welcome? The porn will be back in the next work.
> 
> That said, the ~feelings~ are quite explicit. You've been warned.
> 
> If you haven't been reading this series, it follows canon but they've been sleeping together since "Past Prologue" (season 1). Enjoy? And read the series? ;)

When Elim Garak and Odo appeared on the transporter PADD, Julian Bashir felt the knot in his chest tighten further. He pushed aside his anxiety and went into autopilot, rushing toward them, quickly assessing them, asking pertinent questions.

After their physicals were complete, Bashir finally began to relax. Garak was alright. He was safe. Julian had made sure of it with his own eyes, hands, and medical instruments.

As he mended the bruise around Garak’s eye, Julian looked at him closely, carefully restraining himself from showering Garak with nervous affection. He desperately wanted to hold Garak and comfort him after this scrape with death and the loss of his mentor — and, if he was being honest, ask him the dozens of questions niggling at his mind — but with great effort, he held himself at bay.

Julian had never seen Garak in this particular mood. The Cardassian was very quiet, seemingly absorbed in introspection. The usual doctor-patient banter and deflection was absent.

“Are you alright?” Julian asked very quietly, a tiny concession to his overwhelming desire to do something to help. They were alone, but speaking any louder seemed intrusive.

Garak met his eyes but said nothing. Julian’s gut twisted with worry. He studied the expression on Garak’s face. It wasn’t secretive or concealing, but it was impossible to interpret.

“If you need to talk…,” Julian let the offer hang.

Garak just looked at him silently, his blue eyes holding that strange look.

Bashir finished with the dermal regenerator, setting it down. When he looked up, Garak was still looking at him.

“Can I sleep in your quarters?” Garak asked softly, breaking what had become a long silence.

Julian’s heart wrenched in his chest, the small gesture of trust almost shattering his self-control. He swallowed the urge to grasp Garak tightly and whisper comforting nonsense against his hair. Instead, he nodded. “I’ll assign you to my quarters and put Odo in with Miles.”

Garak gave a subtle nod, then stood. “I think I’d like to go lie down.”

“Of course. I’ll show you to our assigned cabin.” Julian gestured to the door of the  _ Defiant’s _ small sick bay.

They walked in silence. When they were inside their shared quarters, Garak turned to face Julian. He looked pensively at the human for a moment, not speaking. Julian was still trying to understand the ruminative look on Garak’s face when the Cardassian stepped into his space and slipped his arms around him.

Julian’s heart swelled in his chest. He returned the embrace gratefully, holding Garak close. Julian closed his eyes, softening into him. He felt Garak press his face against his neck, and Julian’s stomach did a few involuntary flips. He smiled faintly at his own reaction, squeezing Garak more tightly.

Garak took a step back after several minutes. He suddenly looked exhausted, but otherwise his expression was unchanged. “I’d like to be alone for a little while,” he said in a voice that seemed too calm. When Bashir raised his eyebrows, Garak gave a subtle shake of his head. “Just a short time. Please.”

Julian hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll be back when I need to sleep.”

“I look forward to it,” Garak said softly. Turning, he removed his shoes and lay on the bottom bunk, facing the wall.

Julian considered Garak’s back for a moment before leaving their quarters. He still didn’t know what to make of Garak’s state of mind, though he felt somewhat reassured by the Cardassian unexpectedly seeking affection and comfort from him. Whatever it was, pushing seemed unlikely to produce answers, as much as he wanted to try.

Julian took a deep, silent breath. Patience. He could be patient. “As do I,” he replied, then left the room.

______________________

Garak stared at the wall, watching Tain’s ship explode. He had watched it explode at least a thousand times already.

A second scene played in his mind’s eye. He heard his own voice, begging. He saw Tain, doggedly remaining at his post. He saw Odo, then nothing. Loop. Repeat.

A third. Tain’s cold eyes, mocking him for hesitating to interrogate Odo. Questioning his loyalty. Seeing his weakness and despising it, as he always had.

A fourth. Odo, flaking apart, growling, screaming in agony. Odo, betraying a secret Garak would never share with anyone.

Garak’s mind reeled. Tain had ordered his death. It wasn’t shocking. Tain had ordered his exile, too. But exile had always held, for Garak, a small hope of redemption. He’d always imagined there might be circumstances under which Tain could forgive him.

It had never occurred to him that Tain had already killed him. It was brilliant, really. Tain had precluded the possibility of forgiving the Elim Garak who’d been a force of nature in the Obsidian Order — the Elim Garak who had allegedly betrayed him — by exiling him. By letting that Elim Garak starve to death inside the carcass of a dead Cardassian space station.

Garak didn’t know when, exactly, his death sentence had been rendered, but he knew that the person he’d been no longer existed. He realized now that Tain had already known.

When he — whoever  _ he _ was, now — survived the assassination attempt, Tain had given him the option to join him again. In his naivety, Garak had thought that  _ finally _ he had proved himself worthy of a second chance. Tain had played to his weakness, showering him with ingeniously engineered compliments, recounting triumphs that revealed the close attention he had paid to Garak over the years. Tain had always known exactly how to disarm Garak, and he did it masterfully. As they’d reminisced, Garak had let the praise wash over him, somehow not believing it was simply a means to an end. It always had been, and Garak had always ached for it regardless.

The ship exploded.

Garak squirmed, crossing his arms over his chest. He had never expected to lose his taste for interrogation, but Tain had seen it. His cold eyes, light eyes so much like his own, had seen Garak’s horror at the thought of interrogating someone he respected as much as Odo. Unsurprisingly, Tain had seen it more clearly than Garak. Of course he had. Tain saw everything. He knew, even then, that Elim Garak was dead.

But Garak hadn’t known. He’d been drunk on the acceptance of his father, delirious at the idea of returning to Cardassia. In his determination to prove himself valuable to Tain — to Cardassia — he’d revealed to himself how utterly repulsive he now found his former vocation. The interrogation had been more excruciating than he could have imagined. He’d been more desperate for it to end than Odo.

He felt sick, remembering Odo’s confession. The interrogation had begun to rip Odo apart, but it had only scratched the surface of the pain he felt being alienated from his people. Garak understood. He’d carry Odo’s secret to his grave.

The Elim Garak who would have destroyed Odo was dead. Tain was dead. The Order was dead. The pain was stunning in its complexity. Garak felt as if some great beast was indiscriminately tearing organs, bones, tendons from him. He was raw. Formless.

The ship exploded.

He saw Cardassia. The wall in front of him blurred. He ached for Cardassia. He had never loved something the way he loved Cardassia, but the Cardassia he’d lived to serve had died with Tain.

He raged against the injustice. He had no father. He had no mother. He had been permitted no expression of love in his life, and so he’d devoted himself wholeheartedly to Cardassia. He’d committed countless unspeakable acts out of love for Cardassia. He’d dreamed of return for years. Now, the father he didn’t have was dead, and the greatest obstacle to his return was gone. But Tain’s Cardassia had been Garak’s Cardassia. Who was he in this new world? And what was that world to him, who’d been reborn in exile?

The enormity of the loss stole his breath.

The ship exploded.

He had no home. He had no father. He had no future.

The ship exploded.

His desperate voice rang in his ears, begging his father to save himself. Tain’s stubborn face refused him, as he had refused him so many times. He remembered the debilitating panic of watching the foundation, the  _ keystone, _ of everything he knew stand unflinchingly in the face of death. He remembered the all-encompassing terror of imagining a universe without Tain.

The father who’d rejected his love. The mentor who’d honed him with cruelty. The man who’d exiled him, destroyed him, ordered his death.

The ship exploded.

A sunny day in the countryside flashed through his mind. He looked up at his father; his father looked down at him. Pale eyes that had never stopped watching him, even in exile.

The ship exploded.

He felt more alone than he’d thought possible. He was no one now. He was nothing now. He felt empty. He felt free.

____________________

When Julian returned to their quarters that night, he paused just inside the small room. “Garak? Are you awake?”

Garak rolled over. He looked at Julian. His brow was furrowed. Garak had an uncomfortable moment of feeling startled by the human’s alien features, even as the mere fact of his presence bathed Garak in a faint sense of relief. He frowned. He felt as if some part of himself had been reset.

He realized he’d been silent too long when Julian shifted uneasily in place. “Yes,” Garak said, blinking. “I am.”

Julian stepped farther into the sleeping quarters. The familiarity began to seep back in as Garak looked at him. “Should I sleep on the top bunk?” Julian asked tentatively.

The suggestion surprised him, but he recognized that Julian was trying to grant him space. It was a very kind and respectful gesture, and he knew it didn’t come naturally to Bashir at all to offer to step back. Through the carnage of his ravaged emotions, Garak felt his heart warm.

“No.” Garak considered the narrow beds. “Can we put the mattresses side by side on the floor?”

Julian smiled slightly. “Sure.” He tapped the lock code into the door, then hoisted the thin mattress off the top bunk.

Garak stood, arranging the other mattress next to it. Julian tossed pillows down as he gathered the standard blankets and a spare from a wall compartment.

Garak lay down. He watched Julian remove his shoes, then slip out of his uniform into a pair of pajamas. The human lay next to him, calling for lights.

Sleeping quarters on the  _ Defiant _ were never completely dark. Garak tried to look at Julian’s face in the faint illumination, but he saw the ship. Odo. Tain. The ship. Odo. Tain.

When Julian’s fingers entwined with Garak’s, the older man jumped.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Julian said quietly. “Are you alright?”

“No.” Garak was surprised to hear the word on his own lips. He squeezed Julian’s fingers.

“Is there anything I can do?” Julian sounded like he was biting back dozens of other questions. Garak felt grateful.

“You’re doing it.” He paused. “Come closer.”

Julian moved toward Garak, twining their limbs until they lay belly to belly. Julian’s thighs were stacked with Garak’s, and their arms held one another close.

The sound of his own frantic voice faded a bit. Garak pressed his forehead to Julian’s, listening to the man’s breathing. He tried to match his breath, focusing on the familiarity of it.

Odo. Tain. The ship. The loop continued, soundless.

Garak realized he was shaking. Julian wound a finger in the hair at the nape of his neck, and the gentleness of the gesture pierced Garak. An unfamiliar pressure built in him, and he realized he wanted desperately to confide in Julian. As he instinctively compiled reasons not to, a strange calm surfaced in the tumult. Tain was dead. Julian was here.

“Julian,” Garak said softly, pushing down the panic rising in him.

The warm body wrapped around him held him more tightly, hitching the blanket up to his ears. It felt good. Warm. “I’m here.”

Garak found he didn’t know how to start. “They’re all dead.”

Julian pressed their foreheads together more firmly, fingers moving subtly in Garak’s hair. “I know. I’m so sorry, Garak.”

“Tain is dead.” Garak reeled, lightheaded from saying the words aloud.

Julian stroked his hair wordlessly, holding him.

Odo. Tain. The ship.

“His ship exploded. The whole fleet was destroyed.” His words hung in the air. “Tain is dead,” he said again, almost certain that repeating such an absurd statement would disprove it.

“I know he meant a lot to you,” Julian said softly. “I’m very sorry.”

Garak didn’t know what else to say. Tain’s face surfaced in his mind, suddenly, telling him Mila knew too much. He trembled, dimly aware of Julian caressing his scalp. Mila.  _ Mila. _ His mother. Tain’s lover, closest confidante, and staunchest supporter. Garak felt nauseated, remembering the feeble words he’d summoned in her defense. Shame tore through him like shards of ice.

He’d failed her. She was safe, but only because Tain was dead. Shame turned to an impotent rage. He’d never been more terrified of Enabran Tain than in that moment. Tain had suggested the unimaginable. Garak had been so shocked he’d been unable to defend the one person in the universe who had never doubted him.

Shame melted into formless guilt as an unexpected eddy of relief swirled around him. Mila was safe. It was the corollary to Tain’s death.

Odo. Tain. The ship. They remained, but the loop slowed. The images lost definition. Garak lay still, rendered immobile by the conflicting feelings within him. Loss. Longing. Relief. Sadness. Anger. Shame. Desolation. Alienation. Beneath it all, a strange, aching, inchoate peace.

“I don’t know what to do,” Garak said, almost inaudible.

Julian stroked his hair. “You don’t need to do anything.”

They lay quietly for what felt like a long time. Returning from another reverie, Garak realized Julian was still awake.

“You should sleep,” he whispered.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Julian murmured.

Garak’s heart beat pounded inside him. “I don’t want to be alone,” he said quietly, afraid of his own honesty.

“You aren’t,” Julian replied.

Mila’s face swam before Garak’s eyes. He longed to see her. He didn’t want her to find out from anyone else, but he knew it was certainly too late now. She had access to Tain’s information networks. Surely, she knew. It was bitter to be so far from her. No one else could mourn for Tain the way they would, whether he deserved it or not.

Mila had loved Tain for decades. Taken care of him for decades. Raised their son without help or acknowledgement. Guarded his secrets. She’d done it all thanklessly, surviving on the scraps of affection Tain so carefully and ungenerously doled out when it suited his purposes.

Garak’s heart ached for her. He had always believed Tain secretly loved Mila, that he had simply learned to hide it away to protect her.

_ “She knows a great deal about me. Too much for her own good.” _

Tain’s words rang in his ears. It wasn’t love. Perhaps it had been once. But the cold, hard look in Tain’s pale eyes had not been love. He supposed Tain hadn’t remembered love well enough even to feel regret.

Garak thought about Julian. Wasn’t he doing much the same to him? Their public facade was necessary, but extending his reticence into their private relationship was cruel. Of course he loved Julian, but he had always felt unsafe even thinking the words. When he deigned to show it plainly, he very often found himself instinctively retreating to a safer distance. Recently, he’d even gone out of his way to emotionally distance himself from Julian for weeks. It had seemed to work for a while, but Julian’s coma had shattered any illusion that Garak’s feelings had changed.

Garak had rationalized it over and over — why he couldn’t name his feelings for Julian. It kept him safe. It kept Julian safe. It was for his future. It was for Cardassia. It wasn’t love at all, but an addictive comfort. It was just a distraction. It was just a cover. On and on.

His rationalizations all eventually led back to Tain. Tain was the reason he had always been so afraid to love Julian, and even more afraid to name it. And yes, Tain would have eventually hurt Julian to hurt Garak, had he found out. But it ran far deeper than that well-founded fear. Tain had shown Garak how to love, and Tain’s love was cruel. It was withholding. It was a weapon.

The weight of it was agonizing. He couldn’t treat Julian the way Tain had treated Mila. He couldn’t let himself fall out of love and resort to the cold manipulation he’d seen Tain employ for so many decades. It was so hideously cruel.

Shame overwhelmed him. It was humiliating to realize this was the one part of his father’s legacy he’d never failed to uphold. It was chilling to know he had the capacity to hold someone hostage this way. It was sickening to discover he wasn’t entirely sure how to love someone any other way.

He watched the ship explode, over and over. Tain was dead. It was up to him now.

Garak lay in the dark, grappling with his fear. Usually, fear felt claustrophobic, like suffocation, like the air had been forced from his lungs. Now, he found, it felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath him. He felt diaphanous, unmoored. He clung to Julian, trying to anchor himself.

Slowly, his sense of gravity returned, but the unbearable lightness remained. He opened his mouth to speak, but he froze. He licked his lips, which were inexplicably too dry to speak.

“I love you, Julian.” His voice was low, lacking the performative lilt he spoke with out of habit. He swallowed. “I’m in love with you.”

He felt the human tense in his arms, trembling slightly. His voice sounded tight when he spoke. “Garak?”

Garak was lightheaded. He wondered, as his heart raced, if he might lose consciousness. He held onto Julian until the uncomfortable giddiness began to pass. “I’m in love with you,” he repeated. “You deserve to hear me say it.”

A pause. “I’m in love with you, too, Garak,” Julian whispered back.

Garak could hear the tears in Julian’s voice. He drew back a few centimeters and took Julian’s face in his hands. He felt tears on the young man’s cheeks and jaw.

Garak stroked Julian’s face with his thumbs for a long moment. The pain that had consumed him since he awoke on the shuttle receded incrementally. For the first time, Garak wondered what love might feel like when it’s not suffused with a relentless fear and undermined by debilitating regret. He wondered if he’d get to find out.

He kissed Julian softly. Garak’s eyes were closed, but he saw a light shine in the dark where their lips met. Julian’s fingers slotted over Garak’s aural ridge where it met his jaw ridge. The familiar caress warmed him. They kissed for a long time, conversational touches that began to soothe Garak’s frayed nerves.

Some time later, Julian pulled away, kissing Garak’s chufa. He pressed their foreheads together again.

“I believe you,” Julian said, as if there had been no break in the conversation. “But why tell me now? What’s different?”

“We’re probably not in less danger,” Garak said softly. “But it’s different.”

“Was Tain dangerous to you?”

“Yes. And to you.”

“And he was very influential.”

“Yes.”

“The Obsidian Order was largely wiped out.”

“Largely is not completely. And the Order was not the sole domain of my enemies. I don’t-“ Garak tried to figure out how to explain that he knew nothing of the world to be born out of Tain’s death. “Power dynamics will shift. Perhaps not for the better.”

“So we still aren’t safe to be...open.”

Garak stroked Julian’s hair. “We are still dining companions in public. I’ll still call you doctor, and you’ll still ply me for information every chance you get.”

“I can do that.” There was a hint of a smile in Julian’s voice.

Garak felt a pang in his heart. He kissed Julian lightly. “I’m sorry you have to, my dear.”

“So if our public face is the same, why is it different when we’re alone?”

Garak smiled, despite himself. Julian was too clever.

He heard his own voice on the bridge of Tain’s ship.  _ “I’m afraid the fault, dear Tain, is not in our stars but in ourselves.” _ He had been quoting  _ Julius Caesar, _ yes, but more accurately, he’d been quoting Julian. The human laughingly admonished Garak and Rennan with Cassius’s words whenever they blamed external circumstances for an unfavorable outcome of their own design.

He let the words out before he could talk himself into stopping them. “Because I was wrong.” He stroked Julian’s jaw with his thumb, hesitated. “I’m sorry.”

Julian kissed him. It was sweet and gentle and loving. It felt like nothing he deserved and everything he wanted. “I forgive you.”

Garak felt something old and frozen within him begin to thaw. “Thank you,” he whispered against Julian’s lips. It meant more to him than he could say, so he didn’t try.

Silence fell again. Garak saw Odo. Tain. The ship. He watched them now from a distance, inside the haven he and Julian had created.

Safe in the dark, Garak let himself cry. For Tain. For who he’d always thought Tain was. For who he’d thought  _ he _ was. For the Cardassia he’d known and loved and served. For the future he’d wanted so desperately and had recoiled from when he’d tasted it. For Mila, who had suffered too long loving a man as cold as Enabran Tain. For himself, who’d done the same.

Julian said nothing, for which Garak was grateful. Garak let Julian cradle him, stroking his hair as he cried.

He thought of Mila comforting him when he was very young, holding him while he cried, making him promise not to tell anyone. He remembered the day Tain had caught them. He cried for the mother who’d wanted to love him and for the child who’d learned that love acknowledged inevitably leads to pain.

Garak didn’t know how long it had been when he finally stopped crying. He didn’t know how long one cried for years of exile, decades of painful hope, a lifetime of rejection. He couldn’t venture to guess the tears required by the loss of an identity, a future, a center of gravity, a worldview.

Garak tucked his face beneath Julian’s chin, inviting sleep to take him.

**Author's Note:**

> It probably goes without saying that I love kudos and comments, but just in case: I love them! And I feel really weird not writing a bunch of goddamned filth here, so please cheer me on? Or tell me I'm right to feel weird?


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